Embodiments or the present invention generally relate to radar sensing, personnel monitoring, and communications and, more particularly, to a system combining communications, active tags, and ultra wideband radar to monitor location of team members (e.g., rescue mission operations or first responders to an emergency situation) in real-time with team member identification as well as detection of individuals (e.g., victims) inside premises affected, for example, by fire, hazardous material, or other catastrophe.
There is often a need for detection of people who may be hidden behind or trapped underneath building rubble, concealed behind walls, or obscured by smoke-filled rooms. Such situations can arise, for example, in a war zone when the search may be for hostile individuals, but perhaps more commonly in fire, flood, earthquake, plane crashes, or other catastrophes, when the search is for victims whose lives may be in danger and for whom the time it takes to be found may be critical. For combat teams, and all the more so for urban and other search and rescue teams, a number of sensing capabilities and technologies have been developed such as canines, listening devices, and video cameras to detect the presence of living victims who may be hidden and trapped or otherwise unable to move. A need exists, however, for tracking the whereabouts of and communicating with team members, such as those of emergency first responders such as fire, medical, and search and rescue teams.
Embodiments of the present disclosure and their advantages are best understood by referring to the detailed description that follows. It should be appreciated that like reference numerals are used to identify like elements illustrated in one or more of the figures, in which the showings therein are for purposes of illustrating the embodiments and not for purposes of limiting them.